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Saturday, May 17, 2014

The A-Z Om Guide to So-Called Autism Acceptance: Ideas Claiming to Be Autism Acceptance and Why They Are Not

“Albus Dumbledore: Indifference and neglect often cause
more damage than outright dislike.” –Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

In
today’s culture of modern day political correctness, it seems to become almost
impossible to criticize anyone for prejudice, racism, sexism, and other bigotry
unless it is a premeditated, front-brained notion.What we end of with is that no one seems to
want to confront the ordinary prejudices of society and individuals that help
perpetuate injustice.We hear racism doesn’t
manifest in burning crosses and wearing brown shirts like it used to, but
inequitable and racial practices still persist even if a lot has been done to
combat that.No one hates women; they just
don’t always accept them as they would themselves.Immigrant communities aren’t called bad
outright, but just are associated with negative social and economic problems
often for simply enjoying the same social status as natural-born citizens.LGBT groups aren’t considered intrinsically
bad, but just aren’t considered entitled to respect and freedom the way
heterosexuals are.None of this rhetoric
wants to admit its uneven level of respect and dignity for others or to take
responsibility for their current plight.These attitudes are unfortunately seen all the time in the autism world
and people, particularly the privileged, dominant ones, want cudos for how far
they come without fair feedback on how far they have to go.

Injustice
isn’t just injustice.For many ethnic
and minority groups, their plight is the consequence
of historical circumstances and/or genocide, rather than the perpetuation
of it.For LGBTs, disabled people, and
women, inequitable treatment did not start this decade and may not have simple,
clear-cut origins, and have happened in virtually every culture and society at
some point.Civil rights struggles may
not be like a movie where there is one good side and one bad side, with
clear-cut villains such as Sauron or Voldemort, and obvious heroes such as
Frodo and Gandalf or Harry and Dumbledore.Oppressed view and treat different groups with the same lack of humanity
that their oppressors treat them and not everyone in these struggles are as
commendable as King, Mandela, or Gandhi.If I were to view discrimination as acts committed by clansmen, brown
shirts, or red guards, and fought by Gandhis, Kings, and Mandelas, I would have
very little case.The truth is that most
injustice is perpetuated by people somewhere in between these two types of
personas, who in any case, don’t respect other groups of people are equal in
their rights, presence in society, and way of being.The title of the article “The A-Z Om Guide”
refers to two things: one is how the various strands of autism prejudice are
numerous, just as are the sounds in the English alphabet, hence “A-Z.”The other thing my title refers to is that
while these various strands of prejudice may be varied, the differences on
closer inspection appear meaningless, in the same way the word “Om” is believed
by many Hindus to contain all the sounds of the world.Among neurotypicals (and self-hating
autistics) there are several ways of perceiving autism that, in the end, do not
amount to acceptance.

“I don’t hate you.I just
wish you weren’t different from me in this respect.”

Someone
could always say to a person of a different racial/ethnic background, “It don’t
hate you, the individual.I just wish
you had as light/dark/medium skin tone as me.”Similarly, autistics hear everyday, “I don’t dislike you.I just don’t like autism.”In
both these cases, we see the person saying these worlds has to hate dislike
something about the person that cannot be changed.

“I just wish you
were more like me because then your life would be better and/or easier.”

The
classic line of European colonialism that lasted for over two centuries was,
“We (the Europeans) need to bring Western civilization/the word of Christ to
the indigenous people so they can enjoy the benefits of modern
civilization/become civilized.”A line I
have heard fed to me before as an autistic by neurotypicals is, “I think if you
were neurotypical, your life would be easier/better.”Both of these lines assume that the
autistic/indigenous person is not capable of succeeding/being civilized without
the European/neurotypical’s help respectively.

“I should
accept/not judge you because you have to struggle against so much.”

I’ve
heard people say, when talking about the so-called Third World cultures, “I
guess we’d be like them if we didn’t have what they did.”This may sound tolerant, but instead it just
says to me that if Third World cultures had what we did, they’d be just like us.We characterize these cultures as living in
mud huts, being technologically ignorant, war torn, badly governed, or
uncivilized.We don’t see big cities,
laptops, cell phones, and politicians such as Nelson Mandela.Nor do we take into account the rich
traditions of food, music, art, and literature to come from these countries
such as Nigerian author Chinua Achabes’ Things
Fall Apart.In the case of autism,
neurotypical and other non-autistic people ignore strengths autistic people
have such as superior-working memory, 3D-drawing skills, graphic recall, and perfect
pitch of voice.

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t think they should
be allowed to do/given this.”

I’ve heard it said by people
that, “I don’t hate gay people.I just
don’t believe they should be allowed to marry.”We also hear, “I don’t hate women.I just don’t believe they should have a choice to abort a
pregnancy.”The latter one could potentially
seem much more compelling to me than the former.Certainly, depending on your belief in when
life begins, do not want a baby to be killed.However, this argument would be much more convincing if it weren’t for
the fact that politicians and political think tanks who say this openly support
bombing innocent civilians in another part of the world without a solid threat
coming from the area, or to execute criminals.

In a
similar sense more or less to both of these other examples, I’ve heard it said,
“People don’t hate people with autism.They just don’t want to see them be given the educational and medical
services that will help integrate them into society for this or that
reason.”All of these views deny someone
else the right to enjoy or benefit from freedom or accessibility the way they
do.

“We don’t deny
these people their rights because we hate them.It’s just a financial/economic issue.”

I’ve
heard people say that, “This society doesn’t look down on, devalue, or hate
autistic people.They just don’t want to
pay higher taxes needed to give them the same social advantages.”This logic has also been used to argue
against desegregation of America, equal health coverage for homosexuals, and
the decolonization of the Philippines.It essentially implies that autistics/ethnic minorities/LGBTs/indigenous
people are not as important as a fraction of the earnings of middle class
Americans.Currently the average
American makes $60,000 per year, while the average amount of dollars each tax
payer pays to fight the War on Poverty is $34.Middle class Americans, particularly white conservative ones, complain
about being bled dry by the War on Poverty.In the meantime, the average American taxpayer pays $870 dollars in
taxes to provide for corporate subsidies.World powers from America to Britain to China argue against greater
freedom and equality for their ethnic and religious minorities saying it is not
cost effective.In fact, government
studies indicate that every dollar spent on people with special needs as
children save $17 spent on them later in life.South African archbishop and social activist Desmond Tutu once said,
“When will governments learn that freedom is much cheaper than oppression.”

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t like how they cause
all these problems for us.”

This
is commonly said about migrants to the United States, particularly ones from
the Latin countries, most often in reference to taking jobs and services from
natural-born Americans.The “they took
our jobs” mantra implies three things: (1 That these jobs belong to
natural-born Americans, 2) That is as immigrants/Latin Americans that they are
taking jobs, and 3) That these migrants being given jobs makes employment
opportunity scarcer for natural-born citizens.(1 and (2 In the six years that I’ve been in college, both junior
college and university life, I see natural-born workers, many but not all
white, texting, web-surfing, talking on their phones while many of the international
and ESL student workers go out of their way to help me with whatever issue I
come to them with.Shouldn’t people be
given jobs based on their hard-work and loyalty to their company, rather than
their nationality or ethnicity, and (3 economists have pointed out for decades
that migrants come to the U.S. willing to work for less pay and harder work,
and both of these in turn save and make companies money, which actually opens up jobs because it grows companies.Meanwhile, equal health coverage for
homosexuals is criticized on the grounds that it would cost society more
money.This sort of thinking doesn’t
explain why homosexuals are denied benefits while others such redheads,
left-handed people, and Asians are not.

In
the case of inclusive education for autistic people, parents of typical
children have said they worry it will cause their students to get less
attention from teachers.In fact,
studies have indicated that disabled students in inclusive classroom settings
develop better social skills, school performances, and self-confidence that
would actually require them to need less attention from teachers, while typical
children in inclusive classrooms learn better leadership, problem-solving
skills, and empathy that allow them to work more on their own without a
teacher’s help.

“I don’t hate these
people.I love this one celebrity who is
from that group.”

We
hear, “I have nothing wrong with gay people.I love movies with Neil Patrick Harris.”Temple Grandin, in my opinion, has become Neil Patrick Harris for
autistic people. The fact that you have
appreciated something they have done does not mean you respect them as equal
human beings.Liking a celebrity from a
particular group does not mean that one believes that group is entitled to the
same rights and benefits from society.Comparing
autistic people to John Wayne, Michael Jackson, or Kurt Cobain just ignores each
autistic person as an individual.

“I must be like you
because I’m acting/feeling this unpleasant/inappropriate way.”

Individuals
with bipolar disorder will often hear their non-bipolar peers say, “I’ve been
feeling awful.I must be bipolar.”People with AD/HD hear their peers who can’t
pay attention say they must have their condition.I’ve heard people who were stressed over
getting their house remodeled or starting a new job say, “Oh, that’s my autism
acting up.”All these words depend on
stereotypical oversimplified notions of these conditions lack the understanding
societies need to accommodate them.It
would be like me saying, “I must be neurotypical because I can’t just ask a
girl out without droning on endlessly about our school work.”

“Underneath your
so-called differences, you are just like me.”

This
kind of rhetoric is frequently said towards transgender individuals, whose
parents say, “I still love you, but you’ll always be my son/daughter to
me.”A common autistic variant of this
rhetoric is, “Underneath your autism, there is a completely normal child.”Neither of these ideas accommodates to accept
these people knowing who they really are.Both of them suppress the individual’s own identity, which in turn,
makes it harder for the world to accommodate for their differences.

“I don’t hate these
people.I just don’t like how they do
certain things.”

This
“keep it in the bedroom” rhetoric is heard all the time in the autism
world.People say, “I just don’t like
how autistic people flap their hands/speak in monotone/lack eye contact.”To accept someone, you do not need to like
everything they do.You just need to
respect that they have every right to do these things without changing them,
just as I can accept neurotypical’s right to talk about trivial things such as
weather, or not know how to make operable a railway system or develop the
Silicon Valley. I don’t say, “I accept
neurotypicals, but…”To me, “but” means
that there is something to compensate for lack of prejudice, which in the end
is not accepting at all.Acceptance
means no ifs and/or buts.If you see
autism organizations that put forward any of these ideas when talking about
autism acceptance, be aware.Acceptance
means accepting autistic people as individuals who are equal in way of being,
rights, permanent belonging, and importance to society.